Gold-Dipped Dresser

Holy moly!  I’m about to type up what was a whole month of work – an hour here, two seconds there, half hour here – in one post.  I’m not sure if it feels like I’m cheating or just not giving this project justice but either way…

Remember this dresser?
Well, that’s how it looked when we first got it.

Set inside the twins’ nursery, I gave it a two-toned look and some new, spray-painted hardware:
And now, I look back on that two-tone decision and I think “what the heck was I thinking?”  The french provencial style of the dresser married to a more modern, two-tone look probably wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.  I mean, it didn’t look awful but it definitely wasn’t as pretty as I thought it was at the time.  It’s funny how your perceptions change, isn’t it?

Well anyway, it doesn’t look like that anymore.  I spent the last month turning it into this:
I was inspired by a picture of this gold-dipped dresser I saw on Pinterest (pin’s link is broken) months ago and vowed to dip this one someday and that someday, or should I say somedayS, finally came around.

Trophy (Painting) Wife

Last week, I finally got around to throwing up a collage wall and making a lamp out of string lights in Sebastian’s room.  If you missed that post, go check it out.

A few of the things up on that wall are some trophies from Anthony’s years past – Little League baseball years past.  I asked him a few years ago if he’d allow me to spray paint them and I got a shocked face and a stern, are-you-crazy, “no”.  Then I tried again last week and, maybe since all these guys have been doing is chilling in Sebastian’s closet, I got a “sure”.  So, I took that affirmative and ran with it…straight outside…with a few cans of spray paint.

Have you a few old trophies laying around?  Maybe you’ve passed some by at your local thrift store?  Well, if so, here’s how to make them as exciting today as they once were.

Trophies are put together really simply.

Basically, they’re a bunch of pieces and parts stacked on top of eachother with a long, threaded rod down the middle and that rod is secured at the bottom with a nut.

Unscrew that nut and everything will just slide right off.

The super cool thing about Anthony’s trophies is that each base is marble, carrerra marble to be exact.  I know so because a tiny sticker on the back of each told me so.  So fancy, right?  Well, there’s no way I’m going to paint something that isn’t ugly in the first place.  So, I grabbed all the plastic to be painted and left the marble as-is.

I gave all of the pieces a good washing with some dish soap and a toothbrush before I painted them.  They were a tad dusty from being stored so long.  After they were dry, I took them outside and laid them all out on a big piece of posterboard that was headed for the trash.


Then I gave each piece a coat of spray primer.  Plastic tends to be pretty finicky when it comes to holding paint (ahem), so priming it first ups the chances of it really sticking.

I painted one side of each piece, let that side dry, and then turned everything over to paint the other side.

Two of the trophies I left just primed – the gray and white.  I wasn’t sure what color I wanted to go and the only actual color I have in my spray paint stash right now is yellow.

Once everything was nice and dry, I put the trophies back together the same way I took them apart – by stacking them in order over the rod and securing it all by putting that nut back on at the base.  Except, in putting them back together, I turned the marble bases around backwards so that the metal plate parts with all of the writing were facing the back and the fronts were just plain marble.  See?

(So I was thinking while I was putting these things back together, about how awesome it would be to grab a few marble-laden trophies from a thrift store, take them apart to remove the marble, and stack the marble pieces all together to make a lamp base.  You could put all the big pieces at the bottom and small at the top or you could stagger them so they’re all different.  Either way, it be a really cool and cheap way to get a marble lamp!  :D  )

Had I a longer shelf, I probably would’ve painted more trophies and maybe that’ll eventually happen anyway.  Until then though, I really love how these turned out.  It’s fun when you can redo and repurpose something but even more fun and special when it’s something of sentimental value that probably wouldn’t have been used much less displayed anyway.  :)


All thanks and gratitude to my trophy husband for being so good at baseball as a wee lad, for without his mad skills (and eventual reluctance to my painting idea), this post would probably never have been written.  :)

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Cuffergirls

It’s rare that I can begin a project and see it through to the end in one day but this past Tuesday, I did just that.  I’ve had some thigh-high womens’ socks in my “to sew” pile for a year now and finally got around to refashioning them into……boot cuffs for the littlebig girls.
(PS, grandma got the girls these boots I was all heart-eyed over and they are just as cute and deserving of that emoji in person.  So, in case you’re in the market for some toddler booties, I highly recommend these!  They’re linked towards the end of the post!)

It took me about ten minutes total to grab the socks,

cut each shaft into two equal lengths (which, by the way, leaves mama with a pair of crew cuts),

and serge the unfinished ends.
Don’t have a serger?  Just sew a zig-zag stitch around the ends.  No sewing machine?  Grab some matching thread and sew a quick whip stitch around the top edge.  Don’t worry about perfection.  Worn, they’re scrunched up anyway so no one will be able to critique your whipping.

When the air down here eventually dips below sweltering during the day (November, here’s looking at you), the girls will actually don them outside for longer than a two-minute photo sesh. 
jeans:  Carter’s clearance last year // similar
sweatshirt tunics:  Carter’s clearance last year // similar or this one would be so cute too
scarves:  diy // similar
boots:  Carter’s or Kohl’s
hats:  one gifted and one a hand-me-down // similar and similar
tire swing (in case you need a swing option that can hold two tots – we paid $30 for it so watch that price):  Amazon
slightly blurry pic:  juggling the camera with a baby on the hip
*some of the links above are affiliate links
 
Someone was not about to be left out of picture-taking…
…and one eager mama was not about to decline because, just look at that face.

Eat him up.

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Pressed & Sealed

I saved almost every single petal of every single rose Anthony gave me while we were dating.  My thick college textbooks were the perfect places to press them - I’d pick the petals off dying flowers and carefully stick them in random pages.  I’d leave them there for a few weeks and into a big bowl they’d go with the rest of the pressed petals once dry.  I didn’t really have any intentions or plans to do anything special with them while I did it though.  I just saved them because of the love and thoughtfulness they signified.  Fast forward to those months in the midst of planning our wedding, when I had this great idea to have them made into a rosary for Anthony; my gift to him on our wedding day.  I had heard from a friend of a convent of sisters who would do just this out in California (I think that’s where they were at least) but when I wrote them, I was sad to receive a letter back saying they no longer made rose rosaries.  I looked into some other options but the prices were higher than I could spend while paying for our wedding so the idea wilted and life went on. 

Fast forward again, only this time to present day, and to the ziploc bags filled with those dried petals that I’ve held onto for all these years.  I’ve finally found a place for them, or at least some of them. 

See ‘em?  They’re inside that shadowbox frame on the wall above our desk!  :)  That frame was one of many inside that bargain cart we bought a few years ago at Dirt Cheap.  (Here’s a similar frame*, though not square.)  I’ve had the idea to fill it with the roses for about a year now and, per the usual, my plans always get delayed by life.  But here it was, before I got to work on it last week:The starfish that was inside had come unglued and floated around wherever gravity let it and the backing of the frame had a little dent in it.  In other words, it was bumped and bruised and the perfect piece for a project.

So, after removing it from the packaging, I turned it over and ripped off the brown paper backing.  It was just glued on around the edges.

 
Next, I took off the white carboard backing.  It was stapled to the frame so I just grabbed a small flathead screw driver to pry up and off those staples.
The hanging hardware kept me from getting the top side off because of the way it was attached, but three sides were enough to open up the frame and get inside.
Once I was in, I took out the mat.  It was held in with a bunch of staples.  I just removed all of the staples along the bottom of the frame and a few from each of the other sides so that the mat slid right out from the bottom.  When I was finished, I’d just have to slide it right back in and wouldn’t need to replace the staples.  I wasn’t diggin’ the off-white color of the mat so my next step was painting it white.  The white spray primer I had on hand did the trick.

I also wanted to ditch the blue background for a crisp white one so, I grabbed some watercolor paper I had (similar*) and used the mat to cut it to the size of the frame.

Completely undocumented because it had to be quick to beat the end of naptime, I got out a little bit of black acrylic paint, a paint brush, and some water and lettered “you & me” onto the paper.  I waffled between a lot of different sayings – the lyrics to our wedding song “When God Made You”, a favorite verse from the book of Tobit, and some other sappy sayings but in the end, settled with simple yet profound. 

Enter the bags of rose petals.  They were going to be carefully laid inside the bottom of the frame, high enough that they’d show above the mat but not encroaching upon the “you & me” that would also be in view.

At first, I didn’t think I’d have enough petals to fill the bottom of the frame enough that the flowers would peek up over the mat.  Thankfully, in this case at least, estimation has never been my strong suit, because I had way too many.  I mean, I probably used about 1/4 of the petals.  I’m really, really, really not good at estimating.  Once I realized I had too many petals, I went through and picked out the brightest red ones to use inside the frame.  The others I saved for another project; another day…maybe I’ll get that rosary made one of these days.  :)

Once I was satisfied with the amount of petals inside the frame, I glued the watercolor paper with the “you & me” lettering to the inside of the cardboard backing (covering up the blue), and then ran a thin strip of Elmer’s glue along the back of the frame to hold the backing on.

Since the back of the frame is against the wall, I didn’t add any brown paper to the back, but left it as-is.  Call it lazy or call it efficient, you decide.

Up it went, the start of a collage that will eventually make its way up this small expanse of wall. 
The evening after I shot these “after” photos, I took off, kid-less, to my favorite local haunt, Dirt Cheap, where I found this gorgeous cantilever floor lamp*.  It was on a bottom shelf, in a box that had never been opened.  I carried it around the store whilst I shopped, unsure if I wanted to spend the $25 it was marked at.  I’ve been using our desk to do finishing work on my pillow covers recently – things like cutting strings and serging edges – and the lack of light has been frustrating me.  But now, my $25 lamp has solved that problemo.  Yep, I got it.  It just makes the space, doesn’t it?    
As far as everything else goes, the chair was a Varage Sale buy ($15) that I plan on reupholsering someday, the desk was a yard sale find ($30), the rug was also a Dirt Cheap buy ($25), the basket was clearanced at JoAnn Fabrics ($7), the plant was a gift and the vase it’s in was thrifted ($1), the curtains were once sheets, the valance is fake and is a diy I’ll share one of these days, and the mirror was a cheap diy project.  The wall color is “Heaven on Earth”, by Benjamin Moore but color matched to Valspar at Lowe’s and the carpet is original to the home and something I’d replace in a heartbeat if we picked the right numbers.

This desk, you can’t see the whole thing, but it’s pretty big.  And, it’s been a big mess until recently.  It was the home for many an item labeled “to-do” and many a paper waiting to be filed.  About a month ago, I unburied the top of it so that we could utilize it and we’ve worked hard to keep it a clutter-free zone.  It’s been a much-needed space away from the kids for me to sew and a space where Anthony can study for his Masters’.  It’s not ideal for us to have an ‘office space’ in our bedroom but it’s the only place we have now that all the other bedrooms are taken by little people.  But, it’s been fun for me to make it “pretty” so that we venture more toward ‘creative space’ and farther from ‘office space’.  I mean, nobody wants to think about work when they’re in their bedroom, right?  So, the prettier and more integrated into the entire design of the room, the better in this case.

Anyone else have their office in an odd space?  Any tips on making it feel like it belongs or so that it doesn’t necessarily look like a work-only space?  I’m sure I could tweak a few things over here so I’m all eyes.  Type away.  :)

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*affiliate links

Acting on a Hutch

This post will show the snail’s pace at which we project these days…in case you’ve ever wondered how we get it all done with four kids in tow.  Answer:  WE DON’T!  Haha…oh *sigh*. 

The hutch I’m about to unveil has been around and waiting to be finished for a few months now.  Actually, it was part of the yard sale fundraiser that this table was also a part of.  One of the teens going on the mission trip painted it and it was up to me to do some slight distressing and stenciling of the back.  I didn’t get a before shot but I did find this one Googling, and it’s kind of similar to what ours (ours as in the donated-to-the-fundraising-effort) looked like: 
It was brown all around with that dated gold pattern on the glass doors but thankfully, in really good shape.  Perfect for a few coats of paint and a trip to 2016.

We put the teens to work on giving it a light sanding, giving it a coat of white primer, and then going over that with a couple of coats of a creamy white latex.  We removed the backing behind the top part of the hutch (it was just held on by several small nails) and, on it and on the back on the inside of the doors, the teens painted on a coat of the leftover chalk paint we used on the table mentioned earlier. 

And then that backing sat,

and sat,

and sat,

and sat at our house, waiting for me to stencil it.

And finally, I got around to it one night last week.  I used the Beads Allover Stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils (the same stencil I used on an accent wall in the twins’ room last year) and some of that creamy white latex paint to add a unique touch to the hutch.

And pretty unique it is:

It’s currently sitting in the youth center waiting for a buyer and for sale pictures, I ran around Anthony’s office, trying to find what I could stage her shelves with.  I didn’t have many options, as you can tell but either way, it was a fun challenge.

The stencil goes horizontally but actually I meant to paint it on vertically.  We sort of guessed on which way the backing went on while it was sitting at our house, miles from its counterpart hutch and our guess was wrong.  But it’s okay because we were both pleasantly surprised at how good it looked going the “wrong” way.  But really, with a stencil this pretty, there’s probably no wrong way anyway.  :)

(spot the selfie)

The mission trip is done and over this year so the proceeds from this hutch will go towards the trip next summer.  One of the coffee tables I’m working on turning into a tufted bench is also a part of the fundraiser so you’ll see that finished on the blog in approx. three months.  Ha!  Slow and steady does not win the race folks but as long as what you’ve got looks better than what you had, hopefully no one will notice. 

Spotted: Goodwill

Last weekend I had to make a run to Lowe’s and just down the street from Lowe’s here is a Goodwill.  I left Anthony at home with all the kids and don’t tell him, but I did a quick swing by that thrift store.  ;)

I left without buying anything but I did grab a few pictures of things I liked and so, once again, we have yet another post in the ‘Spotted’ series (you can read more if you click ‘Spotted’ under the drop-down, archive menu in the sidebar).

I don’t know what it was about this picture but I really loved it.  I might nix the existing finish of the frame, painting over it with a creamy white but then again, maybe not.  I think it’d be pretty in a little/preteen/teen girl’s room – I’d pull the bright coral color out for curtains or bedding or maybe both.


On the docket over here is turning two coffee tables into tufted benches (stay tuned!) and so, of course, that’s what popped into my mind when I saw this coffee table.
I have a thing for bamboo and the bamboo on this thing was in pristine condition.  It was only $4 (!!!!) because the glass was missing.  I’d remove that thick top part and replace it with a piece of plywood.  Stick some foam, some creamy white linen, and some tufting over that and it’d warrant all the heart eyes.

 
At first glance, these tables weren’t anything special beyond their mid-century modern vibe.  But, had I the time, I’d have swooped them up and dolled them up.  The white tops were a faux marble that I might try to extend or paint down around the sides of the tops to make them look like they were slabs.  Then I’d probably paint those sides with the diamonds and the legs (white?  gold?) only because I’m pretty sure they weren’t wood.  But, I didn’t look close enough to know for sure.  If in fact they were wood, I’d sand them down and stain them a light, ashy brown.


This chair.
Gosh, I wanted it.  But, I’d have an entire houseful of furniture with no room to walk if I grabbed every good piece I saw.  But, it might’ve been perfecto out on the screened-in patio.  Either way, I walked out without it.  It was marked at $34.99 and in great condition.  The cushion was boring so I’d probably make another but the bamboo (how I love it) looked incredible.  And I don’t know if it came off the base or not but how awesome would it be if you took it off the base and hung it?  Swoon…


This was a fancy map of the Rocky Mountains:
I loved it because I have all the sentimental feels for the Rockies; lots of great childhood memories.  I also loved the colors in it; the minty green was so pretty.  I’d ditch the frame and find another though and it could be hung anywhere – office, playroom, bedroom, bathroom, etc…


I had a hard time walking away from this little hexagonal dish:
I couldn’t think of a place to put it off the top of my head and now I’m wishing I’d have just grabbed it.  Our bathroom counter is crying.  My first thought was to stick some succulents in it to add a natural element to a space.

I have absolutely no use for teacups and saucers but these were so pretty.  There were only two anyway and if I were to start a high tea tradition here in this roost, we’d need just a few more.  The teacups might’ve made cute little succulent planters though.


I’m really not much of a dog person (hello allergies) but this little guy was cute.
Sometimes styling shelves can be ruff but the addition of this pup would make any shelf quite fetching, ya know?


And last, I spotted this gem:
’Reconstructive Plastic Surgery’ – this one would be the star in a frame collage.  Hang it somewhere prominent and you’ll forever have the perfect ‘statement piece’.

*wink wink*

DIY Tufted Headboard: Part I

(The above pic in an ‘in process’ one – the tufts weren’t smoothed yet nor were the buttons on but I had to give it a trial run and whoa, doesn’t it look gooood even half done?!)

Oh man, I can’t wait to share this tutorial with you guys.  Let me preface this whole project tutorial with this though – it might seem super overwhelming and intimidating.  The thought of making a tufted headboard from scratch seemed really far-fetched for me even.  When you look at your inspiration pictures and then you take a gander at some tutorials, it can get to be too much and the idea can easily seem like one for the go-getter DIYers who have every tool imaginable.  But, let me shove this into your brain - you can do this.  Anyone can do this.  Take it step by step and don’t think about the final product until you’re almost done.  Yes, this is something you can do with a whole day’s time.  But it’s also something that you can do over a period of a couple of weeks, like us, by doing a step per day and then all of a sudden, you’ve built yourself a headboard that you didn’t even think you could.  Easy does it.

First, find your inspiration.  Figure out what you want.  Pinterest is a great place to start.  I started a pin board for our master bedroom, the room where this headboard is going, so all my headboard dreams are tucked away there.

After I pinned inspiration pictures, I then hunted down tutorials on how to get what I wanted.  This tutorial by Kristi at Addicted 2 Decorating on how to diamond tuft is, by far, the best I could find.  Even though her tutorial is for an ottoman, you use the same steps as you would a headboard.  Her pictures and instructions are so thorough and, when you have no clue how to build a headboard from scratch like me, detailed instructions are so appreciated.  I’ll be linking back to her a few times during the tutorial just because it’s so great.

So, armed with inspiration and instructions,  we got started.  (Note:  This post is all about the tufted back of our headboard.  We’re in the process of adding arms to each side of the back and then retrofitting it to our current bed but those will each be detailed in separate posts.  You can whip up a headboard just like the one I’m about to write about and call it done in the end, sans arms and retrofitting, because it can definitely hold it’s own.)

As with any project, first we figured out what we needed to get ‘er done; you know, the supplies.  From start to finish, all we used were a slab of foam, a piece of plywood, a few pieces of wood boards, a sharpie pen, scissors, a drill (a screwdriver would work too; it’d just be a little more work), fabric, batting, screws, washers, upholstery buttons, glue, staples, and a staple gun.  It’s a good amount of stuff but I bet you have half of it at home and the other half is easily (and cheaply) attainable.

Let’s break down those supplies a tad though first.
Plywood.  We bought ours from Lowe’s and guess what?  They cut it for free (Home Depot does too!)  Yep.  That means you don’t need a saw of any sort.  Go in, grab a piece of 1/2 plywood, give them your measurements, and let them cut it.  We got ours cut 61 5/8” by 32”.  Our bed is a queen-size and a standard queen-sized bed is 60” wide but since we’re retrofitting the headboard to our existing bed frame, which is a tad wider than the mattress, we added a few inches.  When you’re measuring, make sure you account for the size of your bed frame instead of the size of your mattress.  Or instead of using plywood, you could scour your local thrift stores and/or resale sites to find a simple queen headboard that you could easily reupholster.  I saw this one advertised at a local thrift store here last week:
 
Foam. 
My Aunt had this three-inch thick eggshell mattress topper laying around that she wasn’t using so she let us have it to use for this project, saving us a good chunk of the project cost.  If you don’t have an Aunt with a spare piece of foam, Home Depot sells this multi-purpose foam pad that’s a lot more affordable than the foam you’ll find at fabric stores.  However, it’s only 24” wide (or tall if we’re talking headboards) so if you want something taller, you might need two (and then you’ll have a bunch leftover for another project).  

Wood Supports.  For added stability and to make your edges look a little beefier, you’ll want to frame out the back of your plywood with a few pieces of 1 x 4.  So, you’ll need to get four pieces cut (remember to get them cut at the store) that can be screwed along the perimeter of the back edges like Sarah at Sarah M. Dorsey Designs did to the back of her DIY headboard here.  Once again, we lucked out because some good friends of ours were tossing some wood out that we salvaged for the supports on the back of ours (thank you Alford’s!)

Fabric.  Kristi (Addicted 2 Decorating) recommends using a woven fabric so that it doesn’t twist while you’re screwing in your tufts.  I agree that using a woven fabric would probably keeping the twisting to a minimum, but I couldn’t find a woven fabric in my under $10/yard budget.  I did find this linen blend fabric on sale at JoAnn fabrics though that was exactly the color we were going for and it worked great!  I used about three yards of it for the back of the headboard.  We did toy with using a jewel green fabric that I have in my stash but, after hanging it on the wall behind our bed for a day to see if it jived, we decided we really just wanted a neutral that would work with any color decor we went with in the future.  Maybe we’ll use the green to make the girls’ a headboard someday.  :)  To soften the linen fabric up a tad, I tossed it in the wash quick with a little bit of detergent and some fabric softener and it came out just right. 

Batting.  In my opinion, batting is optional.  It does give a little bit more fluff, smooths everything out (if need be), and helps protect the fabric from ripping when it’s pulled over the corners.  But, if you sand down the corners to make them less pointed, that would help the fabric stay intact.  For our headboard, I did use batting though I’m not sure if I will next time.  I bought this full-sized package of batting (with a coupon) to use for this and a couple of other upholstering projects we have on our to-do list.
 
Buttons.
We used these size 30 cover buttons for this project (purchased at JoAnn’s with a 50% coupon) and they are 3/4” in diameter, the perfect size to fit right over the… 

Screws and Washers.
Instead of going the typical threaded button route, we used screws and washers to get our tufts, using Kristi’s genius tutorial.  For our headboard we needed 30 #8 screws and the same amount of #10 washers.  If you’re going with larger buttons, you’ll just have to make sure you use larger washers; small enough that they won’t peep out from under your buttons but large enough that they’ll allow the button to slide down into your tuft and sit upon them.

Drill or Screwdriver.  If you’re going to have any tool on hand, I’d say a drill should be it.  We have the older model of this one* and it’s been our trusty go-to tool for going on ten years.  You can use a screwdriver to get those tufts if you don’t have a drill though, but it will definitely be a little more time-consuming.

Glue.  Gorilla Glue*, Liquid Nails* (we used this on our ottoman buttons), E6000*  – any of those would work to glue the buttons onto the screws and washers.  Hot glue would work, though if you accidentally get it anywhere that you don’t want it, it’s difficult to remove so I’d say stay away from it.  I actually used Aleene’s OK To Wash-It glue* because I had it laying around and it’s stuck good so far.  We’ll see what time says though.  In addition to glue for the buttons, you’ll also want some to attach the foam to the plywood while you work.  A spray adhesive like this one I’ve used in the past would work well (or Elmer’s if you’re lazy like me).

Staple Gun and Staples.  To attach the fabric to the back of your headboard you’ll need to use a staple gun.  We have and used this one* along with 5/16 staples.

Onto the process…
First, I cut the foam to the size of the plywood.  I wanted the eggshell side of my foam to be against the plywood and the smooth side closest to the fabric but to cut the foam, it was easiest to slice it with the smooth side up.  So, lining up one corner and making sure both sides out from that corner were in near perfect alignment…
I traced around the other two edges with a sharpie.

I also marked which was was up on the foam and on the plywood just in case the plywood wasn’t cut into an exact rectangle.  It probably wouldn’t matter too much if things got flipped though.

Then I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut out the foam along the sharpied line.  A serrated knife or an electric knife would also work to cut out the foam.

Next, I marked out where the buttons would go by just measuring and placing +’s over each spot.

The marking was easy.  Figuring out how spaced I wanted the buttons was the hardest thing about this whole headboard.  Seriously, it took me three days of naptime brainstorming to get to the end decision.  I blame it all on the fact that I couldn’t think with this lack of pregnant energy for the life of me and maybe, just maybe, I was overthinking it all to begin with.

It wasn’t just the measuring that was hard, it was deciding on the amount of buttons I needed to achieve the look I was going for.  I didn’t want a ton of buttons like this headboard from Target:

But I didn’t want too few like this one from West Elm:

Both of those headboards are beautiful but just not what I had in mind for our tufted beaut.

The tufting pattern I had in my head was a series of equilateral triangles at the points of which would be the buttons.  I wanted the distance from each button to be the same – across and diagonally.  That meant I had to go back to middle school to figure out the height of the triangle in order to figure out how much space would be between rows.  I know, too much thinking.  Told ya.  In the end, I came up with a design where each button is 7.5” apart horizontally and each row of buttons is 7” apart (it measured a little under 7” but I rounded up for simplicities sake.)  That meant that, on our queen-sized board, I had two rows with seven buttons across and two rows with eight.  It was helpful to use a piece of rectangular paper cut to scale to figure this all out before I started marking up the foam.  After the plan was made on paper, it was time to hit up the foam.  To mark out the buttons, I started at the top of the foam and marked the first row 7.5” from the top - I made a small mark 7.5” down on each side of the foam and then, using a tape measure as a straight edge, connected my two dots to give me that entire row.  Then I found the center of the foam (the entire width or 61 5/8 divided by 2), marked that, and that gave me the halfway point between the two middle buttons on the first row.  Once I got those marked out, I just made marks every 7.5” each way and then measured out the second line the same way except that the buttons this time were staggered so that the middle mark I made was where a button would go.  I hope that makes a whole lot of sense to you all!  It might be more helpful to draw out a grid on your foam – the columns and rows – and then place your button marks on the intersecting lines.

Once I was done marking out the buttons, I put the whole slab up on the bed to quell the fear that I had too few or too many buttons.  Color me a paranoid perfectionist, I guess.     

Next up was cutting out holes in the foam where each button would go to help them sink down into the foam with the fabric, giving that deep-tufted look.  To do this I just stabbed the points of a small pair of scissors into the foam and cut out a square that was about an inch wide on each side; just wide enough for my 3/4” buttons to slide right in.

At this point, the foam was ready.  Before it could be attached to the plywood though, we needed to frame out the back of the plywood with those pieces of 1 x 4.  Since we are retrofitting our headboard to our current bed frame, ours looks a little different on the back than if you’re just going to attach your headboard to the wall behind your bed.  You could also make this headboard to attach to a metal bed frame as well by the addition of some wood legs that extend from the bottom of the headboard down to the frame itself.  Cover those legs with fabric before you attach and call it good.  I’ll have a retrofitting tutorial up here hopefully in the next few weeks.

If you’re going to attach yours to the wall, frame it out like this…
…where the red rectangles represent the 1 x 4’s.  Just screw them in with some 1” – 1 1/4” screws; three or four in each board should do.  Then you can either buy a french cleat (this one* has great reviews on amazon.com) or make one to get it up on the wall securely.

Once framed, it was time to glue the foam to the plywood.  Gluing it to the plywood ensured that it didn’t move around while I laid the fabric on top or started on the tufting.  If you have the energy, the best way to do this would be to carry the foam and plywood outside and use some spray adhesive to get a good stick between the two.  I was at this stage of the headboard game when Anthony was at work one day though, so there was no carrying all this outside for mwah.  Instead, I went down Lazy Lane by swirling and then spreading with my fingers some Elmer’s glue I had lodged in the desk five feet away. I let the glue dry and it worked like a charm…and amazingly, I didn’t get any on our duvet cover.  (In case you’re wondering, I did this in our bedroom because anywhere else in the house is deemed unsafe from toddler hands and potential destruction.)
The next thing I did was cut shallow slits in the foam between each button.  I read about this trick on Little Green Notebook.  It’s a great idea, the point being that the fabric in between each button will just sink right down into the slit, making nice folds.
But I realized after that, since I was going to be placing batting over the foam it really wasn’t necessary and really, a waste of time.  If you’re going the no-batting route though, I’d definitely make those slits!

It was time now to get this thing covered, starting with the batting.  I laid my entire roll of batting over the top of the foam and cut it so that it would be able to be wrapped around a few inches and stapled on the back.  Then I just used my finger to poke holes in it over each button hole.
And now, the fabric.  To make sure I only used what I needed and so that I didn’t run out, I started at one end and corner of the headboard, placing the first tuft so that there was just enough fabric left on the outside edge to be wrapped around and stapled.

Down the first row I went, pairing a screw and washer and sinking it into each hole with the drill.

I didn’t drill pilot holes (holes made with a drill bit slightly smaller than the width of the threaded screw) into the plywood first and I kind of wished that I would have.  Since the tufts are so deep, you really can’t tell if one screw is a smidge higher or lower than it’s next door neighbor but some of them are a tad off (I mean, we’re talking like 1/8 of an inch).   Having a pre-drilled hole to place the tip of the screw in would’ve been helpful to keep everything nice and straight.


The key with using a linen fabric like I did is not drilling too much.  Drill until the screw isn’t super tight up against the foam and plywood; there should be enough space to easily stick your fingernail between the fabric and washer.  The tighter you screw into the plywood, the more likely your fabric is to twist, which you definitely don’t want.

Before I sunk each screw/washer, I pulled the fabric I needed for the tuft I was on from the loose fabric in the direction I was working; not from the button I had just planted.  Thank you again Kristi for the tip!  However, I was so concerned with not pulling fabric from the previous drilled button that I didn’t stop to make sure the fabric between buttons was smooth before I started on another screw.  So, a few of the spans between buttons is a little looser than I would have liked.  You live and learn, I guess.  Thankfully, I could tuck a good amount of excess fabric into the folds at the end but still, I made the mental note for next time.

Also before I sunk each screw/washer, I poked all of the fabric that would go into that tuft into the hole for it so that the screw wasn’t pulling fabric in while it was going in; all it was doing was securing what was already there.  In the picture below, all of the holes have screws in them except for the one on the bottom right.  The fabric is just sitting in that hole, waiting to be screwed in.

Once I had the top row done, I skipped a row and worked on the row with the tufts directly in line with the row I had just finished.  Then I went back and did the row in between and the bottom row.

Kristi really does the best job explaining the whole screwing and tufting process so I highly recommend heading over to her post for all the details on this part.

After all of the screws were in but before we stapled the fabric onto the back, I cut off all of the edges of the foam to get a diagonal edge vs. a sharp corner. This helps get a more rounded corner without having to really pull the fabric super tight.  Since I was using batting, I wasn’t concerned about cutting that edge so it was perfectly smooth so I just grabbed a scissors and went snipping away on each edge.


Now it all comes together by stapling the fabric to the back!  Can I just send you over to Kristi for detailed instructions one more time?  Her pictures are just so good.

The key is to make sure you’re keeping an eye on the weave of the fabric while you’re pulling the fabric to the back; making sure it’s all continuous before you staple.  There should be a fold going from each screw around to the back of the headboard.  The weave of the fabric on each side of the fold should meet and continue along the same line.  Here’s what the top of our headboard looks like stapled:The bottom and sides should look the same; a straight lines of folds leading from screw to the back.

Here’s what the back of our headboard looked like after all of the fabric was stapled:

And this is after I trimmed off all the extra fabric, which I saved to make the buttons with:

Then I did the test run because my middle name is Impatient.

So far, so good.  (That green trellis fabric I laid on the bed is going to be made into faux roman shades and will be perched over each window with the existing white curtains flanking the sides.  I’ll probably whip up a pillow cover or two with it as well just to tie everything together.  The other pillows are also getting new fabric and the nightstands are going white down the road.)

We’re almost done with this tutorial!  Hang in there! 

Onto the folds.  Basically, you want one, clean fold leading from button to button, not a jumble of them.  To get that one fold, all you have to do is make it by tucking all the fabric into one fold like so:

Can you see the difference in this before and after?
I feel like my fabric wrinkled a tad during the time between screwing in the tufts to making the folds (there were a couple of days in between those two steps) so I’d recommend fixing those folds right after you screw the tufts in.  I’ll probably end up going over the whole headboard with a quick ironing once we’re completely done to see if I can smooth those wrinkles out.

Now, the buttons!  Like I said above, I used the excess fabric I trimmed off after stapling to cover my buttons.  The button kit has great instructions on how to cover the buttons but basically you just use the included template to cut out as many circles as you’ll need for as many buttons as you’ll need to make.

Then you use the included tool to stack the fabric, button top, and back to easily get those professional looking buttons.  Since you’ll be gluing your buttons on, you’ll use the plain backs vs. the shank backs.  My only problem here (the same problem I had with our ottoman buttons the second time around) was that my fabric was too thick to get the backs pressed on with the tool.  So, while the fabric and button top are stacked like they should be in the tool, I placed a dab of glue onto the back of the button top and used a screwdriver to press on the back.  I pressed one end of the back and then, while holding my finger on that end, I used the screwdriver to press the opposite end until the back clicked on and then just worked my way around the rest of the back.

To glue the buttons to the screws, I put a dab of glue on the backs of all of the buttons and one-by-one, stuck each down into a tuft and onto a screw. 

And that’s it!  Onto making the arms, preferably before this baby gets here which means we better hop to that considering we might have mere hours left!  If you’re calling it done at this point in the headboard game, attach it with a cleat to the wall or add some legs and get it screwed onto your existing frame and then take advantage of the comfort that will follow.  My back and head cannot wait to rest upon the pillowy goodness.

.           .           . 

Stay tuned for tutorials on the arms and retrofitting…and a possible baby announcement! 

Update:  The headboard is done!  Check out the whole tutorial on how to make the arms here.

*Some of the products links in this post are affiliate links.  All of these things are products we purchased with our own cash but that we’ll get a small commission on if you purchase via my links.  Thank you for supporting us!